


Read, Eat, Sleep

by stereomer



Category: Star Trek RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-02
Updated: 2012-03-02
Packaged: 2017-11-01 00:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/349794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereomer/pseuds/stereomer





	Read, Eat, Sleep

_in⋅cip⋅i⋅ent, adjective_

 

 

"Maybe we should just tell people we met at the gym," Zach muses. Instead of getting a spatula like a normal person, he's scraping the frying pan back and forth on the oven range and acting like he knows what he's doing or something.

"Those are the worst scrambled eggs I've ever seen in my life," Chris says in response, leaning a bit closer. He makes a face. "Yup, definitely the worst scrambled eggs ever."

Zach gives the frying pan a determined shake. The half-cooked eggs lurch against the Teflon surface. "The gym is an innocuous place, right? People meet at the gym all the time."

"Dude, I'm starving. You don't have any bacon?"

"You know what, I like this thing where we have completely separate conversations," Zach says, gesturing between them. "It's like we can be really self-absorbed while being in denial about it because another person is in the room, you know?"

He cracks a grin when Chris says, "Big breakfast. Gets you going. Seriously, Quin, those eggs."

"I have facon."

" _Fa_ con," Chris repeats to himself. He straightens his legs, even pointing his toes a little, and slowly slides off the stool, padding his landing with a little hop. " _Fa_ con, god. Really?" he says again as he walks to the fridge.

Zach isn't lying. There's facon in the freezer, as well as a whole shelf of like, bison meat, or whatever it is that Zach buys from the mom-and-pop organic market twenty miles away from his house. None of the meats have freezer burn. With his right hand, Chris opens the fridge door to find three different kinds of orange juice and not much else.

"Huh," Chris says out loud.

"You looking to find Narnia in there or something?" Zach asks from behind him. Chris hears the rattle of plates and turns around in time to see Zach shaking a pile of eggs onto each one. To give himself some credit in the whole breakfast-making endeavor, Chris opens the dishwasher and grabs a couple forks. He holds one out to Zach while digging into his food with the other.

"Thanks," Chris says thickly. Actually, the eggs aren't that bad at all. He tells Zach as much.

"You're wearing my boxers," Zach points out instead, poking his fork in the general direction of Chris's legs.

Chris catches on immediately. "Hash browns? Anything? Seriously, I need a big breakfast."

"Touche," Zach says with his mouth full.

But really, all pseudo-witty repartee aside, yeah, yeah, Chris knows what this is. This is the Ain't No Thing ("Ha ha ha, we're so over this, let's show each other just how over this we really are!"), which, in Chris's opinion, ranks just below the Peacing the Hell Out Now ("So, I guess I'll see you later?"/"Thanks, I had fun.") as the second most awkward morning-after exchange in the history of morning-afters. 

Thankfully, they eat in silence for a while. It's still early morning, barely even six-thirty, and the light slants in through the windows at a sharp enough angle to wash almost the entire first floor with light. Chris wiggles his toes on the tiles. He feels almost unnaturally awake; he tunes in to the clinking of their forks against the plates, and then to the faint sounds of Zach chewing.

When Chris looks up at him, he's staring out the window, absently shoveling eggs into his mouth. A few moments pass, and then Zach glances down at Chris.

Chris mentally presses the 'reset' button. "Not bad," he says again. He really does mean it. It's hard to make it sound like that, though.

"I watch a lot of Food Network," Zach tells him, and he sounds a little more subdued, too, like it's just a normal thing to tell someone you don't know very well.

 

*

 

_con⋅viv⋅i⋅al⋅i⋅ty, noun_

 

 

"I thought we were going with the gym thing," is what Chris opens with as soon as Zach manages the first syllable of a hello.

"Why? What'd I say?"

"You said we met in a kitchen. You told Karl that we met in a  _kitchen_."

"Well, we did technically meet in a kitchen, in the sober light of day."

"Who meets someone in a kitchen? You're weird, man." Chris can hear Zach's dog huffing and puffing in the background. "Hey, where are you? Come meet me. I'm at that coffee place that's like, five minutes away from your house."

"I'm walking Hubert," Zach says. "I plan on having a 4:00 pm bedtime today. I'm not used to being on set by five in the morning."

"Come on. One cup of tea. Or water. I'll buy you some water," Chris offers.

"Jeez, that hefty blockbuster paycheck is really opening up your pockets," Zach points out.

"Don't know if it's a blockbuster yet," Chris counters. Of course, in all likelihood, it's a blockbuster. They practically had it in the bag the minute JJ signed on to even do the thing. Still, sometimes Chris lies awake at night, thinking about what he'll do if he has to sign on for  _Just My Luck 2_  in order to pay the bills. The tagline for the movie would be 'This summer, get lucky...again!'; he even has a hypothetical shithole apartment picked out, too. "Reassure me," he says.

"I've been getting a Brazilian wax on my  _face_  three times a week," Zach says. "It better be a blockbuster, or I'll shoot out JJ's porchlight."

There's a lull in conversation as Chris sits back in his chair and grins out into the street. It's a great day, even for LA -- perfect weather, fairly uncrowded sidewalks. Chris has a book facedown on the table, a cup of chai tea, and he knows what Zach's answer is going to be.

"Let's see. I can practically hear you smiling, so you must know that I've made up my mind to come meet you," Zach sighs expansively.

"Don't sound so happy about it," Chris says. "I promise to have you home by 3:50, if that makes any difference."

Zach hums. "Okay, I'm on my way."

"Sweet. I'm sitting outside, near the back windows."

"I'll just look for the table with the steaming hot Americano on it," Zach says. "'Kay, bye."

Chris lip-farts. After they hang up, he fiddles with his phone for a bit, then puts it down next to his book and flags down the waiter.

 

*

 

_pro⋅pi⋅tious, adjective_

 

 

Maybe drinking so much the night before an all-day press junket had been a bad idea. Chris feels like his brain is made of fuzz and he'd definitely rather be back in bed instead of sitting in uncomfortable canvas chairs for six hours, but Zach is playing it up so much more. He'd been making tiny moaning noises every time Chris shifted in his chair and made it squeak or something. But when Chris finally swatted at him, Zach had had no problem jerking away in time, and he'd even giggled a little.

During their first ten minute break, Chris busts out an apple from the snack table and studiously ignores the pitiful noises coming from Zach with each loud bite.

"Oh god, so loud," Zach complains. "You're like a dinosaur crunching into gigantic dinosaur eggs."

"You're such a liar. Suck my dick and get over it," Chris says. Which could be half of a one-two douchebag punch, because he sprays flecks of apple everywhere as he speaks, mostly on purpose, but what he says is actually just a quote. Everyone has been repeating it ever since Zoe had originally said it to someone while she was on her phone at the Japan premiere, wearing five-and-a-half-inch Pucci heels and fiddling with the hem of her dress with her free hand as she spoke.

Zach rubs his temples and says, "It's like, I don't know if you're  _still_  acting like Kirk, or if you  _are_  Kirk." Sometimes, the way he speaks makes it sound like he's just soliloquizing to himself instead of actually replying to someone.

"Or Kirk is me."

"Kirk pre-dates you by like, twenty years."

"Maybe I traveled through a wormhole," Chris suggests.

"You tire me out," Zach declares. "Sometimes I want to just sit here in silence and think about Puzzle Fighter or stare at the ceiling panels, and then you come up talking about wormholes and crap."

"Right," Chris drawls. "Because I'm the one dropping words like 'pernicious' in normal conversation. Seriously?"

Zach puts his index finger against his mouth, then uses it to point upward. "Shh. Ceiling panels."

Chris obediently falls silent, but he nudges Zach's shoe (a pair of vintage brown boat shoes) with his own (new limited edition Nike dunks). In return, Zach lightly knocks his knee against Chris's.

"Access Hollywood's on their way in," someone calls.

"Great," Zach calls back, then lowers his voice and mutters, "Four down, eight thousand to go," with an exaggeratedly sly look, shifty eyes and speaking out of the corner of his mouth. Chris exhales a laugh through his nose. He offers the last of the apple to Zach, who silently declines.

"Gotta keep the blood sugar up. Energize," Chris says sternly, imitating Zach-as-Spock, before biting into the apple. He tosses the core into the trash can about ten feet away. When it bounces off the wall and clunks in, Zach says, "Hey-o," and they high-five out of instinct more than anything else.

Chris manages to catch Zach's hand right afterward. Well, mostly his thumb. He manipulates his grip by lacing his fingers in between Zach's. "Buck up, camper," he orders, giving Zach's hand a quick squeeze.

"No more Pilsner, ever," Zach says.

"Noted and agreed with." Chris nods, and he finally lets go of Zach's hand.


End file.
